04th August 2016 The Women’s Affairs Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is conducting a series of training sessions with the Ministry of Health staff, particularly nurses, doctors and health care practitioners to raise awareness on the Family Protection Act. The Act came into force in 2014 and since then its implementation efforts have been ongoing among the relevant stakeholders.
The health care practitioners and service providers play a crucial role in carrying out their duties assigned by the Act towards survivors of domestic and gender based violence. It is expected that at the end of these sessions, the participating staff will have an increased knowledge on the Family Protection Act and especially its relevance to their line of work. The Women’s Division also expects feedback from the Ministry to improve the implementation of the Act that will also contribute to eliminating domestic violence. The training evaluation will also assist the future work for the Division in creating initiatives to tackle such issues.
The training sessions have already begun last week and this week from 03/08-05/08 the sessions will be conducted for the doctors, nursing school staff, students and community health officers as well as nurses.
All media agencies are welcome to the sessions to observe. The training is possible due to the collaborative efforts for funding sources from UN Women, SPC’s RRRT, and the Government of Tonga through the Women’s Division. The other participating stakeholders to conduct the training are the Police (Domestic Violence Unit) and Tonga National Centre for Women and Children.
For more information, please call 27145 or email lake@mia.gov.to
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